BTW, don't you love the Hammerdins in the normal Baalrun games that brag about uber 15k damage but can't get the hammer to hit the last baal minion in each wave

hey, nice guide
but could you tell me what u use @ inv?
making summ nec too now

You seem to be lacking FCR. It may not be crucial to hit 125% on a summoner, or even 75%, depending on your play-style, but if you're planning on teleporting a lot with the engima, definitely go with more FCR.

Additionally, there ARE diminishing returns with magic find. A character with 1000 MF is not 10x as likely to find uniques as one with 100 MF, if you're going to fight me on this, I'll dig up a link for you, but I thought these silly rumors regarding MF were pretty much done with by now. There are no diminishing returns until about 100% MF, and then they do kick in, though not too badly until somewhere in the vicinity of 250-300%.

RiC, for your invintory, you've got some options. You can choose to go with summon-skillers with life, but on a PvM summoner, they probably take up more room than they're worth, you can choose to use life and/or resist charms, pretty much any standard caster/mf charms will work. I find that on MFers though, its best not to overload on charms, else you'll find yourself low on invintory room, which can get a bit annoying. I'd probably go with an annihilus, a necro torch, and some small charms with life/resist/MF combos on them, and fill no more than half my invintory.

You are 100% correct on the diminishing return factor with magic find (now here comes the BUT)
The deminishing return only means that you need to stack more mf% to get 1%, not the fact of finding Corona (Elite class item)

e.g.
1) You have 10% mf, you will get 0.002% chance of finding Corona from monster.
2) You have 100% mf, you will get 0.020% chance of finding Corona from monster
3) You have 1000% mf, you will get 0.100% chance of finding Corona from monster (this is where you see the diminishing return)

Now with that example, there is a diminishing return, but you still have a better chance of finding an item with higher mf.
I hope this clears up the debates on Mf% and diminishing returns.

Bullshit

Mf calculates the chance for an item to be normal, magic, set or unique

So coronas drop, and your mf is taken in the calculation of which type it is.

Yep, the chance of a "class" of item dropping (ie normal exceptional or elite) and what type of item it is has nothing to do with magic find, the magic find comes into play when the game figures whether or not to make it white/magical/rare/unique/set. For the first ~100% MF, there is no diminishing return, meaning if you have 50% magic find, you have 50% better chance of getting a unique/set etc than if you have 0. However, around 200-300% MF, dimishing returns start to really kick in, and with 400 MF, you do NOT have 400% better chance of a unique or rare or whatever than someone with 0%mf. Your actual chance is somewhere more in the neighborhood of 200%, maybe a little higher.

So, more magic find DOES help, but not at listed values beyond a certian point. The trick is finding the balance between killing speed and magic find. Someone with 1k mf is simply not going to be killing at the same speed as someone with 100MF, but their chance of finding magic items is much greater. It's all about moderation, I find that somewhere in the vicinity of 200-250 on MF chars without a switch, and around 400 with a switch is pretty optimal for me.

Sorry if this seems like spamming, I just want to clear this up (nice guide too, which i posted b4)

Mischa & Talarra, i was only using Corona as an example to explain the diminishing return. You are both correct, and a CoA is a Corona (petty me srry, lol)

Oh i see, so you should change Corona in Crown Of Ages? then its right.

thanks 4 tips Talarra
got mine lvl 8x now, but killing baal takes like 5 min
when i read these guides i get the id that all those summ necs kill baal in like 1 minute...
beast rlly that important? or

this is where cb comes in, put infinity on your merc, the 40% cb and massive dmg helps alot, baal should die in less than a minute, diablo will die in like 5 seconsd, i tele on top, the game lags for like 5 seconds, and the nect thing i know hes dead

overall i think infinity > pride in pvm, your main attack is CE, infinity makes it stronger by lowering fire resistance, and the stupid cham in pride makes it MUCH HARDER to use CE and Revives

also, with good gear and might/beast your skeletons are already very strong, you can pretty much kill any single monster instantly by tele on top

This post was edited by DonnyL on Dec 8 2006 04:29am